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Ever wonder what Pink Flag - era Wire would have sounded like if they were drunken, pissed off Aussies instead of existentially disaffected British art students? Well, now you know.

They finally caught Radiobutt....

Grateful He's Dead

There's been a few feisty discussions about the merits of Dead/Heads on here. I'm eternally on the fence, but even when I hate them I usually admire their taste in music and obsessive collecting jag.

This guy's blog is a perfect example. Nothing too deep but I've been picking him clean for a week or so. Lot's of good hippy-dippy classic rock and a few nice jazz boxes, the Curtis Fuller, Lee Morgan & Wayne Shorter Mosaic sets are pretty essential stuff.

Best of all it is all Hotfile so none of that Rapidshare too bad you haven't paid gotta wait nonsense.

New Scoob

Flea market finds

Picked up a whole slew of vinyl this weekend at a flea market. $1 LPs and $0.50 45rpms. Spent about $45 all told. These two 45s from the Prophets label were a little more expensive than the rest at around $4 a pop. I'm almost positive they are original pressings so that price was probably a bargain.

The Dillinger track was used on the Yabba You "Jesus Dread" compilation on Blood and Fire. Niiiice!!

One $1 LP that probably comes close to covering the cost for everything I bought was a nice copy of Ravi Shankar & Andre Previn - London Symphony Orchestra - Concerto For Sitar & Orchestra.

more notes on hip hop from a white guy

Anyone check out Bike for Three!, "More Heart than Brains"? I think got it on Radiobutt, best thing I've heard in the way of hip hop in a while. It's a collaboration between Canadia rapper Buck 65 and Belgian electronic musician Joëlle Phuong Minh Lê, done long-distance, and the kicker is that they have never actually met. The result is something different really than any hip hop album around, to me there is much more attention to the music, not just a beat, an ironic sample, and then lyrics. Also, Buck 65 is pretty amazing, his solo stuff is really cool too; dude's the existentialist rapper, talking about loneliness, identity crisis, massive life fuck-ups, and telling great stories, and aside from some comical boasting on the old-school b-boy track "MC Space" (the weakest track on the album if you ask me), free of the same old empty bragging that is a hip hop cliche.

BTW, if you haven't checked out the new Doom album, he's always worth listening to, and he samples a really dark Bukowski poem on his latest album. I also like the new Mos Def album.

Alright, all three albums are white-guy friendly hip hop, but what're you gonna do.....

Hardcore

This is one of the greatest punk rock records of all time. This is all id, aggression, and anarchy. This is rock -n- roll all busted up and crazy. This completely dismantles musical reality.

Everyone is all about Meat Puppets II, and for good reason, but this is the one I love. This, to me, is the Meat Puppets.

Garaj Mahal

Can't decide between awesome and... all that is not awesome...

Other Music Scores

Good scores at Other Music in NYC today...

Sun Araw/Predator Vision split 12" just sitting as the first record in the bin?!?! Fuck yeah. Any of you guys feeling me on Sun Araw?



I LOVE this record by Crescent. I must have hit some of you off with it over the years. This is perfect example of an album I already have on iTunes that's totally worth $6.99 to have it on vinyl. This will get a lot of play in my house. Psyched.



Oh what, how about a new vinyl-only super limited edition Mountains EP with hand stenciled cover that comes with an MP3 download? I got the last one in the store. Sounds dope, right? Maybe you want to go pick one up? Too bad, Thrill Jockey site says SOLD OUT! DC! DC!!! DC!!!!!



Last thing i got was this "box set" by label 1928 Records, the label that put out that LP by "The Muslims" (later named The Soft Pack) that i blogged about like a year ago. It's three 7" and a pack of matches that comes in a cigar box. Good stuff, I'll digitize this.



If anyone lives in NYC, there is also an art show going on in the space where the Tower Records used to be across from Other Music (4th and Broadway in SoHo) that was really cool, here's a link with the info. Recommended if you are in the neighborhood.

Stay up.

dc

Philip Glass: North Star

I have realized that in the blog era my inclination has shifted slightly away from finding new music to finding Mp3s of every piece of music I have ever possessed. I mean EVERYTHING, every LP, cassette, LP borrowed and taped on cassette(somewhere there is a landfill with my name on it), CDs, and my older sister's collection thrown in for good measure. I'm estimating that to be around 5k things, and I've got about 1000 things to go. A lot of it (especially on the tail end) is junk better left forgotten. Once in a while though, I'll come across something I'm totally jazzed to rediscover.

I don't know how Phillip Glass is thought of these days, even by myself. I think he is just kind of Movie wallpaper anymore and his influence on popular music probably makes Moby seem like a bad ass. Still, I contend this a great album, the missing link between Moondog and Aphex Twin and as good as either.

Weird thing is that I had this in high school, late 70's, and the only way a teenager in NW Indiana would come across any interesting music at all is from a review in CREEM magazine. Can't recall who wrote it, hopefully Lester Bangs, will have to track it down.

Anyway, I played the hell out of it, especially when I was in a mellow mood and could only listen to "Another Green World" so many times. My tastes have broadened a bit since then, but as soon as I put it on I recognized every little throbby note and still thought it was pretty cool.

If It's Too Loud, You're Too Old

I posted this on my regular blog, the death of everything, but it occurred to me that it might fit here as well. Or not.

Against my better judgement, I rented a copy of It Might Get Loud yesterday. I found it to be a charming, if inconsequential, little movie. If you think you might enjoy it, then pick it up. If it doesn't look interesting to you, take a pass. It won't dramatically affect you either way.

It Might Get Loud is a summit meeting of sorts between three generations of rock guitar "gods": Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White. The Edge is as you expect him: soft spoken and even tempered, ridiculously (and genuinely) humble in spite of his huge world-wide rock star status, and always smiling. Jack White, also as you would expect, does his best to live up to his provocateur status to sometimes cartoonish results. Jimmy Page, though, is the true revelation here: I was a fervent Led Zeppelin fan in my teen years, and over time consumed all kinds of articles, interviews, and videos about the band, yet Page reveals far more of his personality here than anywhere else I've seen.

Some thoughts:

• Page, far from being the dark, mysterious avatar of heavy metal cool he has projected in the past, is an aging music geek . . . and I mean that in the best possible way. One of the highlights of the movie is watching Page's crazy joy while he plays records for the interviewer - jumping up and down and giggling with glee as Link Wray's "Rumble" blasts through the speakers at ridiculous volume, playing air guitar along with every song on the phono (and this is Jimmy Page air guitar, mind you, so that left hand is going crazy) - and just how thoroughly he loses himself in the music. In the past, Page on camera has always seemed so aloof and distant, as if speaking out from under a hallucinogenic blanket. Here he is, at all times, actively engaged and often quite animated.
• You always knew that The Edge was heavily dependent on effects, but the sheer scope of his sound setup surprised me. They moved his rig into the shoot site with a freaking forklift, for the love of god. He has a full time engineer to help him set up and run the rig. To his credit, he is very up front about his dependence on effects. I also like the fact that he neither defends nor apologizes for his effects mania: it's just another way of playing electric guitar.
• The Edge has a really cool home studio that overlooks some body of water. I like that. The master of machinery also pulls out his old Fostex cassette four track to play old demos. That was my little piece of nostalgia.
• It's so cute the way Jack White discovered the blues, as if no rocker before him ever discovered the blues. He makes a strong case for Son House as a gateway drug. His experience on this count mirrors mine, for it was Son House who really got me rolling on my blues journey. For White, the song was "Grinnin' in Your Face"; for me, it was "Death Letter Blues", from the same '65 sessions as "Grinnin'". By the way, if you have any interest in music at all, you need to have Son House's Father of the Delta Blues: The Complete 1965 Sessions. It's even on vinyl, if you swing that way. And, while you're at it, pick up this Son House/Bukka White video. It is, in my opinion, the single most stunning musical document on film. For years, I made everyone who visited my Brown County house watch this video.
  
• Jack White also makes an argument for the superiority of cheap guitars, and anything in general that makes you work harder to make music. The theory is that if you have to fight to play guitar, your music will be better for the struggle. At one point in some Raconteurs live footage, the director zooms in on White's bleeding right hand as he plays a lead, and then shows the bloody Gretsch in all its glory after the set. Speaking as a bloody-handed guitarist who played cheap guitars with bad action for years, I'm not sure how I stand with this idea. I can't speak to how all the Silvertones and Kays affected my technique over the years (well, I can, actually - my left hand is like a vice, and not particularly nimble), but I do know that when I finally picked up a couple guitars with good action, I became a better guitarist. Not just a more technically adept guitarist, but better . . . against Mr. White, I would argue that playing with the guitar is better in the long run, though playing against the guitar has its charms as well. I do very much sympathize with the thought, and I agree that smooth proficiency has nothing to do with rock -n- roll.
• White was showing off a mod they made on one of his Gretchs, where a luthier added a bullet mic on a cable spool to the body of the guitar. Now he can just reach down and whip out the mic when he wants to howl instead of play. That is one of the goofiest mods I have ever seen. It reminds me of that old John Belushi, samurai guitarist gag, where he had an SG with a gooseneck mic stand bolted to the body.
• Oh, and while we're at it, Jack, it's a little disingenuous to talk about the superiority of cheap guitars when you have all those Gretschs lying around.
• The Edge may be the "sound" guy, but White shows the true beauty of the electric guitar with a collection of busted up Kays and Nationals going through that Silvertone Twin Twelve (which looks like it has been modified to a six sixes).
• In spite of his rep as a "sound" guy, The Edge busted out some beautifully lyrical (if way too brief) slide on the "In My Time of Dying" jam.
• White tried to keep up a punk rock exterior throughout, but when Page plugged in his Les Paul and started wailing away, White sat there like a grinning, gaping twelve-year-old with his jaw on the floor. Both he and The Edge appeared as if they were in the presence of a deity.
  

All in all a pleasant, if non-essential, little movie.

Sean Noonan

Noonan on the punk-rock/avant-jazz vaudeville tip. Sean is a friend of mine for years and played in the dirty jazz trio the Hub and now primarily does his solo project, Brewed By Noon. I think he's getting a grad degree in composition here in NY at the moment and playing a lot in Germany and just generally freaking motherfuckers out regularly.

Happy new year.  It's been awhile.
I will start this post with some recently acquired stuff that I am enjoying.

Liars - Sisterworld

I checked on-line to see what the official release date of this is, but I found conflicting results.  I decided not to look anymore, mostly because I don't give a shit when it came out/will come out.  The fact is that is is available by dubious means right now, and it is a tasteful blend of drone and bombast that makes me feel like a badass as I listen to it walking down the street.  In fact, the chimey bells near the end of the second track make me think of the chimey bells in the "For a Few Dollars More" soundtrack.  Badass.

Here is the second track.  It is called "No Barrier Fun":

Speaking of walking down the street listening to music, I used to own a pair of Shure in ear/sound isolating headphones that I enjoyed, but one day the left channel unexplainably stopped working.  I reverted to the stock apple earbuds, and while the earbuds are fine, switching from the expensive ones to the stock buds was a decisive downgrade.  Fortunately, the pain is over because I got some new headphones over the holiday gift giving season.  They are Etymotic HF2s, and they are pretty sweet.  If you don't mind jamming little things in your ear to seal out the outside, these come highly recommended.  Some say that they don't have enough bass.  Others say they are accurate.  I say that listening to big muffy headphones with bigger drivers in them sounds a bit better, but I don't always want to walk around with the big muffies.  For those of you who are subway listeners, you will be pleased with their sound isolation performance.  I like mine very much.    

Broken Bells - Broken Bells

I've also listened to Broken Bells a few times.  If you like the Shins, you should check it out.  As far as I know, Broken Bells is James Mercer from the Shins and Dangermouse.  It's better than the last Shins record.  I feel like someone had told the band that that album had to be a modern masterpiece, and they got all stressed out about it. Unfortunately, it ended up sounding more like a tinkered with James Mercer solo project than a solid band effort.  Broken Bells is smoother, the songs are good, and it sounds as if it came together naturally. The poppy songs are well accompanied by the synthesizers and sequencers that provide much of the music.  Some of the production is quite elaborate, with dramatic chorus style back up vocals, but it sounds good.  Here's a sample.  It's called "The Mall and the Misery":




I've always been bad making these kinds of lists, but here are some choices from the past year in no particular order.  I'm sure I'm neglecting some important stuff, but I already told you I was bad at this:


Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Circulatory System - Signal Morning
Zu - Carboniferous
Sunn O))) -  Monoliths and Dimensions

Here are a few that I thought were from 2009, but were from 2008:

The Go - Tracking the Trail of the Haunted Beat
Dead Man - Euphoria
Dungen - 4


That is all for now.  Have a lovely year.

Jim

Midlake - Courage of Others

I'm sure I'm not the only anticipating this: http://zak425.blogspot.com/2010/01/midlake-c0urage-of-0thers.html

Mississippi Records/Tapes

Part One: Mississippi Records.

For the longest time I wanted to check out Mississippi Records. I always saw them shouted out in interviews and in cool magazines, but I never got around to it. Then, Quentin Tarrantino movie style, flash back to like 2 years ago, on the way home from work I stopped in Beacon's Closet, a thrift store in Brooklyn, and picked up this LP "Life is a Problem". No details, totally random, but cool packaging and amazing old school funky blues gospel shit from the 30's, plus a bonus 7". The whole thing had a certain vibe to it. Then a few months later I pick up a few other LPs that always had that same kind of vibe... "Washington Phillips" and "I Can't Stand To Live In This World Anymore"... I always dug those LPs. Well, turns out I have a Mississippi Records record collection like 5 LPs deep. They even did that Phillip Cohran reissue from a few years ago. That thing is awesome.

Part Two: Tapes

Another thing I got into in 2009 was the tapes scene. hahaha, records were no longer esoteric enough for me so I had to get into cassettes. Next is 8-Tracks only, then reel-to-reel machines. But seriously, i have a tape deck in both my cars and the busted-ass speakers sound just as good with the analog tape vibe as CDs, and I score cassettes at Garage Sales for like $.25 a pop... Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, shit like that usually, but last weekend I got all these old school Sonic Youth and Velvet Underground tapes at an Estate Sale. The Velvets tape has a nasty cigarette burn in it, it adds to the sound somehow.

But mainly when I'm talking about the tapes scene I'm talking about bands like The Skaters, James Ferraro and all his many side projects. LA Tape scene like The Smell type bands on Not Not Fun, etc. Sun Araw, Emeralds (forgotten best of band from 2009), Sunburned Hand of the Man, shit like that. This Blog has a million cassettes. There are a million blogs like this. Also, at Other Music they always have random, limited edition like 100 print run of cassettes from lo-fi underground Brooklyn labels for $5.00 or less.

One of the main reasons I've been into bug out music like this is because I do a lot of it in my Kid Scooba project, which is my favorite music project of all time (sorry, Monastics). I actually got around to taking some of my recent jams and making my own cassette because I'm gay like that. Check it out, holla at me if you are interested because it really is dope if you are into this type of music, plus the hand made one-of-a-kind cover, you just have to promise not to sell it on eBay. I may digitize it some day, but it won't fit on a CD because it's 100 minutes.

Check you when i check you. DC OUTT OUUT OUT!!

Kid Scooba Rig:

Even more thoughts on the music industry....

Here's a really interesting article on NPR's website about digital technology, overuse of compression, and recorded music's economically driven trend to get louder and louder. I have to say, I completely agree with the article...

http://tinyurl.com/y9an23a

More thoughts on the music industry

This essay in today's NY Times I thought captured some of the discussions that we have on this blog about music, piracy, worth reading. I posted about it on another site as well, a discussion group called the Junta that a few people on this blog have been to, and which anyone in the NY area who posts/reads this is welcome to join, just reach out to me via DC.

The Year We Make Contact